Powder Keg
by queenly
Summary: Shriek your throat raw, boy. Chessshipping.


**A/N: trigger warning for death**

He remembers.

He remembers the tiny girl who dropped the beginning sound of his name, her underdeveloped pronunciation skills forbidding her from speaking it properly. He remembers the indignant child, afraid of the dark, afraid of lightning, afraid to admit it. He remembers the wonderstruck teenager fantasizing of her long, fulfilling life, anticipating adulthood with splendor. An injustice, the memories halted abruptly there, and no more were ever to be made.

Touya cannot stand it any longer. He cannot stand the shattered expression on her mother's delicate face, the way she weeps openly with pathetic shrieks of, _"My baby! Oh, dear God! My baby!"_

He rises; a brave act, considering he hardly trusts his wobbly legs. He rises and he walks, a steady motion, to the casket. He feels the sting of capturing the spotlight, the burn of sympathetic gazes leering at his back.

They're sorry for him, they really are. And they're sorry for_ her. _Sorry, sorry, sorry.

A curt laugh is restrained behind tight lips, for that's _hardly_ funeral etiquette. _'Sorry' won't bring her back'_ floats through his blank mind as he lays a hand atop the cold wooden cover. Cold and hard, such as the holder to the contents. This laugh is more difficult to suppress.

Gentle fingers brush along the coffin, and Touya is no longer so very aware of the eyes burning into him. He is, however, very attentive to the burn of his own eyes. He blinks, once, then again, and he can hear her voice so vividly.

_Crying? Over what? C'mon, quit being such a baby!_

The slam of a shaky fist alerts the near silent room; ah, what a show they're in for.

His shoulders quake, his lips quiver, his eyelids clench. _Crying_. Wrong! He's laughing! Touya is standing before the lifeless body of his closest companion, and is in absolute hysterics.

"You_ bitch_! You just up and leave like this?!"

There are gasps, there are owlish stares. The intensity of her mother's bawling increases, falling on deaf ears. Cackles carry on until his throat is raw.

"You left me, _you left me_!"

He buries his head in folded arms. His laughter glides easily into sobbing, the stunned spectators...perhaps relieved. Relieved he's not certifiably mental.

A duo approaches him with utmost caution, utmost care.

"T-Touya..?"

Trembles wrack him. He's swirling in oblivion.

Silence.

His snivels reduce in volume, hushing himself to hiccups before lifting his head, turning to face who'd disrupted his grieving.

Touya notices the gunky mascara smudged below Bianca's huge watery eyes, notices Cheren's palm resting protectively on her shoulder. He notes the way the two are side by side, just as they always are and presume infinitely will be. And where's his match? Soon to be six feet under.

Their gazes clash wordlessly. Sorrowful limes versus depthless browns. Though she means well, her inquiry is preposterous.

"...Are you okay?"

The response rivals the senselessness of the question.

"Yeah."

From behind her, Cheren is speechless, motionless. He surveys Touya with a definable sharpness, and the giveaway is instantaneous. Puffy lids, liquid mucus pooling on his upper lip- which he licks away, sans logic. External signs are simpler to detect than those deeper, sure, yet Cheren's radar is immaculate.

This boy is broken, and sympathy is not the solvent.

"...You know what she'd say right now?" he allows himself to murmur, idle.

Touya is captivated, intrigued by the words, breath bated for the answer.

An index finger between lenses, perpetually pushing glasses back into place. "She'd say, 'So what if I'm dead? Don't sweat it. Life goes on.'"

His mouth convulses in an attempt to form sound, syllables, sentences. A sudden twist, and there appears a grin, as bright as the day is long.

"Yeah," he agrees. "A-And then...and then I'd say...''Life goes on'? Well, not yours!'"

And again he is thrown into a fit of hysterics. The infinity duo watches, one awestricken, one understanding. Behind them, her mother stops sobbing, begins listening.

"You two loved to bicker back and forth," Cheren comments, furthering Touya's amused howling.

"She _always_ has a smartass comment to make." His entire body trembles. He crumples to his knees, banging his fists on the carpet beneath, forehead rested on the material as well. Just as his prior enjoyment had crashed into depression, this fit finds an identical fate. He pulls his knees in front, burrows his face, weeps with heaving gasps. Bianca's uneasy stirring is met with an arm extended in her path, a blockade.

"Always..." Touya repeats, then says it again. And again. He's a scratched record, a metaphor installed both for his repetition and lack of value. He says the word over and over until he is shrieking it, the entirety of the funeral hall displeased and disturbed. They understand this boy's reasoning, though they fall short of comprehending _him_; why he feels the need to roll around the filthy ground in his classy suit worn specially for the tragic affair, why he is deadset on never in his lifetime allowing himself the pleasure of affection. He had his chance, another isn't deserved.

"Touya." Bianca is through with the ban on intervention, disgusted by it. Her lips are glossy. They part with a hesitance to match her words. "Let's go."

The contracted phrase is appropriate for the occasion; a shortened form of 'us'. A week ago, there'd've been another included in 'us'.

Still, he does not budge from the fetal position, rocking back, rocking forth, screeching rapid babbles into his kneecaps.

It smashes her fragile heart to see him in such a state. Her glance to Cheren is a plea. _Make him stop, make it all stop._

His prior method of therapy a bust, he tests an improved tactic.

"She'd hate to see you like this."

Pause. Silence. Not a soul dare move, speak, think.

"She wouldn't want you upset, especially because of her."

Silence. Dead air. Tension.

"She loved you so much, Touya."

He chances an upward glance. He chances a backward glance. The casket remains same as ever, cold and hard.

"I...I-I know." His voice his gentle, childlike. "She still does."

Whether he intended to speak inquisitively or declaratively is unknown, to himself, even.

Cheren returns his infantile aura with a benevolent-authoritative combo.

_How is one to know what travels through the head of the deceased? What emotions are felt post death?_ "Yes, she must."

Instead of a scowl, there's a beam, a beam with rivers cascading over it. He's bawling, tears momentarily leaving dark blots below. Liquified depression.

He's bawling his dulled heart out, yet all the same grinning with a distinct ferocity.

His legs spring him upward, and he gains a sudden urge to run, sprint until his exhausted calves burn. But he still grasps the vague concept of reality, he still clings to basics. Which is why Touya finds himself marching mechanically back to his chair, wondering if _everything_ in this parlor is cold and hard as he places himself delicately on the wooden seat.

_It's not polite to stare_. Yet they're doing just that, all of them, glaring, leering, directly at him. How ironic. He snickers maniacally under breath.

Cheren and Bianca likewise reclaim their seats, both in the opposite aisle of the delusion. His vision is frozen forward, and he's blind to the glower piercing into his skull. Her eyes are narrow and scorched from constant repetitive swipes of a Kleenex. She's known this boy nearly as long as she'd known her own daughter. This boy is nearly family to her, and it infuriates her to see him sitting with an enormous smile, delighted. He sniffs, she blinks. The glimmering grin falters, the flow of tears stay strong.

Brown irises dart to the left, scanning whom had been observing him so scathingly.

_God, she was the spitting image of her mother._

Touya blinks, mouth open to allow the entrance of oxygen. Oxygen he's not sure he desires in that moment.

He cannot handle this woman's scornful glare, one packed with bitter blame. Such a kind, kind woman now resents him. Such a kind, kind woman.

Finally, his longing to dart off as quick as his feet will allow is fulfilled, and he dashes down the aisle at light speed. An exit is discovered, which he barrels out of, stumbling to his knees on solid concrete. Pain hits him, as does the tear in his slacks, the blood dripping down his shin.

But it's hardly enough to put an end to him. He stands with haste, sprints along the winding pathway, missing being catapulted sky-high by a Toyota by near inches. The angry slam of the horn is ignored, though he does spare a glance to the driver before bolting off again.

His journey brings him to a vast field, tall grass decorating the edges.

And he's alone, to both his dismay and delight.

_Go home._

"I...can't. 'Home' doesn't exist anymore."

_No, jerk off_. I_ don't exist anymore. That doesn't mean you give up on everything._

"Well, what am I supposed to do?! Tell me, what do I do now?!"

Silence. Just as there had been all along.

"Tell me!"

_You're an idiot, Touya. You really are._

Silence. A scream within his skull. He's horrified, his eyes dart around rapidly. He's horrified.

He drops his face to the grass, gripping chucks of it in shaking fists.

The style in which he speaks is eerily low, a ghostly whisper. "Tell me...what am I supposed to do without you, Touko..?"

Silence. Wind stills, rustles of foliage mute themselves.

_Go home, Touya._


End file.
